


Salivate

by 221b_hound



Series: 221bMerrick [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 221bMerrick, First Kiss, First Time, Kissing, Licking, M/M, Requited Love, chocolate as a substitute for kissing, chocolate hearts, wee mention of Mystrade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-05
Updated: 2014-11-05
Packaged: 2018-02-24 04:54:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2568926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John gets a box of chocolate hearts from a patient, and for a change he wants to savour them. It pisses him off no end when Sherlock nicks one. So he licks the rest of them to make sure it doesn't happen again. Sherlock isn't impressed. "People exchange more saliva than that when they kiss.”</p><p>And that leads both men to thinking along certain paths, and licking pre-licked chocolate and then finally... cutting out the middle man.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Salivate

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AtlinMerrick](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AtlinMerrick/gifts).



> This is my second prompt-fill for the 221bMerrick series - prompts that Atlin and I laughed over when I saw her in London in August, and then we decided to both write to the same prompts. This prompt was about how John and Harry would lick/spit on things as kids to stop each other pinching their food - and how that idea probably wouldn't bother Sherlock in the slightest.

It began with the Godiva chocolate hearts.

Mrs Truscott was a grateful patient – grateful that Dr Watson had treated her so kindly, so carefully, so well. So, come Easter, she demonstrated just a small portion of her regard with a box of chocolate hearts.

John got gifts from time to time from his patients. Chocolate, wine, whisky. Home-baked goods sometimes. He usually shared things with the staff (well, except for the whisky; that he took home) but these hearts. These Godiva Chocolatier hearts.

John thought chocolate was all well and good. He liked whisky better. But these chocolate hearts were another matter. His mum used to love these hearts. His father used to buy them for her on Valentine’s day; at Easter; for anniversaries.

His mum and dad were long gone, but this warm memory remained. And so he took these hearts home to savour.

John put the Godiva hearts in the fridge when he got home. He made a cup of tea, put a single one of the fourteen hearts on a little china plate – a dark chocolate one to begin, he thought – and then he sat in his chair, placed the heart on his tongue and let it melt. He sucked the ganache from his tongue and he thought of his childhood, and for a that little while, was perfectly content.

The next morning, John thought he might take a heart with him to the clinic, to enjoy in his break. He lifted the lid of the box to select a milk chocolate heart… and squinted at the box.

Twelve left.

_Well, damn._

John turned to look at Sherlock, who was at the kitchen table peering into a microscope.

“Sherlock, did you eat one of my chocolate hearts?”

Sherlock ignored him.

“Sherlock,” he said, more firmly and a bit more crossly, “Did you eat one of my Godiva hearts?”

Sherlock tilted his head slightly to look at John. He seemed puzzled.

“Sherlock,” John took the box out and displayed it, with some rancour. “Did. You. Eat. My. Chocolate?”

“I don’t like chocolate,” said Sherlock, “And hearts? Who gave you chocolate hearts? Girlfriend? You don’t have a girlfriend at the moment. Secret admirer…? No. Grateful patient.” Sherlock blinked. “You don’t like chocolate, either.”

“You ate one, didn’t you,” said John curtly, “You ate my heart.”

“Don’t be melodramatic,” said Sherlock with a toss of his head, “I may have tried one last night.”

“Don’t eat any more of them,” snapped John.

Honestly, he had no idea why he was so upset by the whole thing. They never fought about food and who had bought what and who owned what and whose turn it was to cook or shop or any of those things. Hell, half the time they just got take-out while they waited for Mrs Hudson to feel sorry enough for them to make a casserole that would last all week. It’s not like Sherlock was a big eater anyway. Normally he might have been amused that Sherlock had decided to break a case-fast with a bloody chocolate heart.

But these were _his_ hearts and if Sherlock was just going to scarf them down without so much as a by your leave, like they meant nothing at all, well, he couldn’t damn well _have_ any.

Sherlock just gave him a tight-lipped, frown-browed, annoyed look and then grinned like a little shit.

“Oh come off it, John. It’s just a few chocolates. And frankly, you can’t afford to go around eating entire boxes of them yourself.” And he looked meaningfully at John’s waist, which was not, in fact, in any danger of thickening, given the amount of running around they did, but John was a bit too aware of having to keep in shape these days and Sherlock knew all of John’s weak spots.

John was having none of it. “Hands off them, Sherlock.”

“You’re not even going to share one little one? Not even the white chocolate ones? We both know you especially don’t like white chocolate.”

John, fuming, perfectly aware that they were both behaving like 12 year olds, scowled, set his shoulders, tightened his jaw, shifted the weight on his feet like he was about to start brawling, and picked up a white chocolate heart. And he licked it, very slowly and deliberately while Sherlock stared, and put it back in the box.

Then John picked up the next heart in the tray, milk chocolate this time, and licked it, and put it back in the tray.

“You’re being childish,” said Sherlock.

“Keep your mitts off my chocolates,” said John, and licked a dark chocolate heart.

“I fail to see why you are having such an emotional response about a damned chocolate.”

John licked two more chocolates, replacing them in the tray.

“Tell me, John,” said Sherlock acidly, “Did that work on your sister?”

“No,” snapped John, licking another chocolate, “I used to have to actually spit in stuff to stop her.”

“And that actually stopped her?”

John was putting the next in line, lick-striped, back in the tray. “Mostly,” he confessed. He was more acutely aware than ever of how infantile this all was but it seemed somehow important now to keep going. To not give up his hearts.

“This whole thing is juvenile and illogical,” said Sherlock, pouting, “Even spitting is just quantatively more saliva than you get from licking. People exchange more saliva than that when they kiss.”

John had just about finished licking his heart collection. He put the last one back in the box and jammed the lid back on. Then he glared at Sherlock who had gone strangely quiet, the corners of his mouth tucked down in that fretful way he had, when a brand new, unexpected and not entirely welcome thought had occurred to him.

“Leave my hearts alone,” John warned a final time, and then he went oddly quiet himself, at how that had come out. Then he shoved the box back in the fridge, grabbed his wallet and stalked out of the flat.

*

Sherlock was out at Scotland Yard, according to Mrs Hudson, when John got home. He went upstairs, made a cup of tea and opened the box of Godiva hearts to select one. It had been a rough day – he’d been strangely fractious for most of it, and thinking of Sherlock all day, in ways he thought he’d managed to stop doing years ago (Sherlock’s voice, and his pale eyes; his voice and his laugh, an unbidden image of Sherlock placing a chocolate heart on his tongue and letting it melt…)

John scowled. _No, no, no and also fucking **no**_. He’d done with that. He’d worked that bullshit right out of his system. Sherlock was not interested, and then he’d fucked off for two years and left John all alone for reasons still obscure and also fucked, and John loved Sherlock like a brother and a best friend and not like anything else at all, _no way, uh-uh, nope_.

John selected a dark chocolate heart (Sherlock was quite right that he wasn’t fond of white) and paused before he put it on the plate. The heart was not the right shape. Not quite.

He lifted it up and peered and realised that the very edge of the right-hand curve of the heart was… indented. Not on the edge but at the top. Part of where John had licked it this morning.

John sniffed, but of course he couldn’t detect any scent other than chocolate. Or… no. That was _not_ the scent of Sherlock’s spearmint flavoured toothpaste. (John favoured peppermint himself and no, he was not going to spend any time thinking about why he knew Sherlock’s was spearmint, or what the scent of it was like on Sherlock’s breath, he unequivocally did not notice things like that; he did _not_.)

Tentatively, the tip of John’s tongue squirmed out and he licked the spot that Sherlock had obviously (so obviously) himself licked. Because when they were kids, Harry could never stop him pinching her stuff either, except with actual spit. And even then…

John’s tongue tip curled back into his mouth and he could taste chocolate and spearmint and warm breath, puffing out in laughter or in the exertion of the chase, or in desire, which is something he’d never heard but used to imagine…

_Ah, fuck._

John shoved the whole chocolate in his mouth, crunched down on it hard and swallowed. Then he coughed for a bit on the richness of the ganache.

Then John stomped upstairs to change into his jeans, ferociously resist the urge to masturbate, and call himself a moron for an hour or so.

The next morning, he grumped a grumpy ‘Morning’ at Sherlock, who was this time filling a vial using a pipette.

Sherlock glanced sideways at John through his protective eyewear, his expression bland. He blinked and pursed his mouth. Sherlock turned those pursed lips back in the direction of the experiment.

John knew the look. It was the _you’ve slept poorly because of nightmares_ look, followed by the _I won’t mention it if you don’t want me to mention it, and you never want me to mention it_ look, and hard upon that the _which is fine, all fine, tonight there’ll be violin music to help you sleep, but not a word from me_ look.

John was used to all of those looks, and liked all of them, except that this time Sherlock was wrong. John looked like hell because he hadn’t slept, because every time he tried his head was full of Sherlock. Not nightmares, no (not any more – though Sherlock falling like a lightning-struck crow had been a horrible double feature along with Afghanistan and blood for a long time). No, this time it was all erotic dreams, and pale skin, and pink tongues, licking little tastes of the edges of skin, the edges of chocolate hearts that beat with wonderful, approving rhythm and Christ, John needed to get drunk. Or laid. Or. _Fuck. Drunk. Yes._

But first, _work_.

“I missed you yesterday,” said Sherlock, and John’s heart nearly stopped in his chest, and then it nearly jumped right up and into his throat and out to dance on the floor between them. He pressed his mouth tightly shut to stop any such fool thing happening.

“Someone needed thumping at the crime scene, did they?”

“Well, Anderson, as usual. But, no. The victim had an unusual medical condition. Alien Hand Syndrome. Her left hand literally did not know what her right hand was doing – it would grab things, including her own throat, without volition. It’s a rare but medically documented phenomenon. Her husband tried to intimate that she’d accidentally strangled herself to death as a result.”

John frowned. “How would that work? As soon as she passed out, she’d let go, wouldn’t she?”

“Exactly.” Sherlock smiled at him, with a hint of approval that warmed John all the way through, and that just made him cross again.

John yanked open the fridge, opened the box of chocolates to choose one for the day – the fun seemed already to have gone from it, but with Sherlock watching he was damned well going to make a show of wanting his bloody chocolate hearts – and hesitated.

A milk chocolate heart at the top was subtly misshapen. It wasn’t just the place where John had licked it. There was a slight indent.

The unbidden image came into John’s head, of a pair of bow lips puckering, ever so slightly, to kiss the surface of the chocolate, but just a fraction too hard, pushing the chocolate shell down ever so minutely. Then the softening of the indent that occurred when the broad flat of a tongue swiped over the spot.

John picked up the chocolate slowly, and inspected it. He couldn’t exactly sniff it, with Sherlock sitting just over there, but… yes. The faintest scent of spearmint.

On impulse, John popped the heart into his mouth, onto his tongue, and pressed it onto the roof of his mouth. The shell cracked and praline, this time, squished over his palate and his tongue. It tasted like Sherlock.

Whatever that meant, because fuck it, John had no idea, never had had any idea, was never likely to get any idea.

“I’m off,” he said, and he abandoned his tea in favour of fleeing for the clinic.

And all day, John was thinking… _is Sherlock licking those chocolates where I licked them? And if he’s doing that, as he seems in fact to be doing, why is he doing that?_

_And why do **I** like it? Why do I want to take those hearts where he’s licked them and put them in my mouth and…_

Well, actually, there were no prizes for guessing the answer to the last question.

_John Hamish Watson, you are a prize fucking idiot and a masochist and a hopeless mess and fuck it do not think about those things; that way lies madness and ruin._

Except that…

Why was Sherlock licking those chocolates? And very possibly _kissing_ them?

*

It was difficult to set up an experiment that Sherlock wouldn’t immediately see through. John considered a webcam. He considered lying in wait behind the armchairs. He considered just asking. ( _What? Was he also fucking crazy now?)_

What he did was to pretend to fall asleep on the sofa that night. And then to actually fall asleep on the sofa, which wasn’t the plan at all, but at least he was on the spot when the light from the open fridge spilled across the darkened kitchen.

John blinked his eyes open but stayed perfectly still. And he watched Sherlock’s silhouette as Sherlock stood by the fridge and stared inside.

John had excellent vision, even in low light. It’s one of the several things that made him a crack shot. That and being able to be calm like a rock on the outside, no matter what his inside was doing. At present, his insides were doing a passable imitation of a saucepan of corn kernels exploding vigorously into popcorn.

His outside was still and calm and completely focused.

On Sherlock, reaching onto the fridge. On Sherlock, by the washed out fridge light, opening the box of Godiva hearts and staring at them. Replacing the lid and putting them back. Taking them out again. Lifting the lid once more and bending his head to inhale deeply, eyes closed.

Even by the odd light and with the odd angle, John could see the expressions flitting across Sherlock’s face. Irritation. Pleasure. Sorrow. Bemusement. Determination. Prevarication. Wistfulness. Longing.

John knew that face so well. He knew all its nuances so well. He knew every line and every shift of lip, eyes, jaw; every tilt of the head and every frown and every smile. And he saw all those things while he looked at Sherlock studying those chocolate hearts in the semi dark. And he knew that Sherlock in no way felt that strongly about goddamned _chocolate._

And then he saw Sherlock lift a chocolate from the top of the box and lean down to smell it.

John closed his eyes, sensing before it happened that Sherlock was going to look his way. He gave it a few moments then opened his eyes a fraction, looking under the lashes, and he saw Sherlock bend lower and press the gentlest, strangest kiss to the chocolate heart in his fingers. He saw Sherlock’s head move slightly as he pressed the very tip of his tongue to the very centre of the heart and then lick a stripe up the face of the sweet, tracing the path John’s own tongue had made that other morning.

And then Sherlock looked indescribably sad for a moment, before suddenly looking extremely disgusted with himself and replacing the chocolate in the box.

 _People exchange more saliva than that when they kiss_ , Sherlock had said, and now Sherlock was licking at the lick John had made on the chocolate heart. He was kissing John’s John-licked Godiva hearts when he thought John was asleep.

Despite himself, John made a strange, strangled sound, and it was far too late to pretend he was still asleep as Sherlock whirled and stared at him, very much a deer in the headlights. He held the box of chocolates in his hand.

John swallowed hard and sat up on the sofa. He and Sherlock stared at each other a little longer, and Sherlock’s throat worked, like he wanted to say something but the words wouldn’t come out.

John stood up, and Sherlock’s expression was deeply pained. He seemed to be waiting for the explosion, or worse, for a horrible silence. For everything to fall apart.

“Sherlock,” said John gently.

Sherlock flinched.

John had reached him by then, and he extended his hand to rest on Sherlock’s shoulder. Sherlock flinched under the touch too, then stilled his body and turned his head so that it was more in shadow. John couldn’t quite see the look on Sherlock’s face, but he could imagine it. The mask. The _I don’t feel anything and whatever you think you know you’re wrong_ mask.

“Sherlock, look at me.” John didn’t know how to make his voice gentler. It came out rough and pleading and he couldn’t imagine what Sherlock was making of it.

Sherlock turned his head back into the light from the open fridge, and indeed he had that mask on, the one that pretended that Sherlock didn’t feel things deeply. The one that heralded unkind comments and manic activity and all the pretence that Sherlock had no truck with all the sentiment claptrap.

John took the box of chocolates from Sherlock’s unmoving hands. With his eyes fixed on Sherlock’s he tossed aside the lid. John nearly asked which one, but the chocolate was still glistening slightly where Sherlock had licked it. Dark chocolate, this one.

John’s expression did a lot of different things then, and he hoped to God Sherlock saw them all, and understood them all, especially the hope. But he couldn’t be sure. So he took the heart that Sherlock had licked into his fingers, and he tossed the rest of the box aside (they showered all over the kitchen, dense little thumps in the dark) and very slowly, very deliberately John lifted the chocolate to his mouth. He parted his lips ever so slightly.

He kissed the top of the heart, over the place Sherlock had kissed it.

He licked the surface of the heart, over the place Sherlock had licked it (over the place where John had first staked his claim).

“People exchange more saliva than that when they kiss,” said John carefully, and then he said, “We could just… cut out the middle man. Or middle chocolate. If you like.”

Sherlock stared at him, or more accurately, at John’s mouth, and so John dropped the heart and leaned up, his left hand pressed along Sherlock’s jaw, his right against Sherlock’s cheek, his fingers threaded around Sherlock’s ear and through his dark hair, and John pressed his mouth to Sherlock’s and he kissed Sherlock’s perfect, sweet, spearmint mouth.

And Sherlock did not kiss back.

John drew in a sharp breath and pulled away. His hands, shaking now, he lifted from Sherlock’s skin and he began slowly to move. He wanted to bolt but he couldn’t make his legs work. Or his brain. Or his heart.

“Oh Christ,” he breathed, voice hoarse and shuddering with shock and despair, “I got it wrong. I got it all wrong. Oh god. I…”

But then Sherlock unfroze, and his hands had closed around John’s hands, and the mask had dissolved completely, and his expression was a cascade of hope and surprise and uncertainty and wonder and again hope. “Not wrong. No. You weren’t wrong.”

With a tiny sound – relief, hope, joy – John ceased his withdrawal. Sherlock turned his head to kiss John’s right wrist, his left palm, and John soon cradled Sherlock’s face in his hands again, and he leaned in again, and he pressed his mouth to Sherlock’s again, and this time, Sherlock kissed him back. Warm and sweet and hungry and hardly daring to believe it.

They kissed, one long press of lips together, and then a series of smaller kisses, little sweet tastes, and then long again, and Sherlock’s lips parted and so did John’s, and their tongues, tasting of dark chocolate and spearmint and peppermint and of each other, licked and tasted each other for a moment before they returned to the little lip-touching kisses.

Sherlock’s right arm was wrapped around John’s back; his left was at John’s neck, fingers rubbing against the fine, soft hair there, reaching up into John’s hairline.

John pulled back only far enough to speak. “Is this okay, Sherlock? Really? It’s okay?”

“Don’t be an idiot, John,” Sherlock murmured, pulling John close against him again, “OF course it’s bloody okay. Less chocolate flavoured for a start.”

John laughed and kissed Sherlock while he laughed and then enjoyed the serious business of holding Sherlock’s jaw and kissing every line of jaw, cheek and brow before returning to the soft, soft glory of his mouth.

“More...” said Sherlock breathlessly as John trailed a line of kisses down his throat next,”…John flavoured.” Then Sherlock winced at his choice of words. 

John kissed the trail back up to Sherlock’s lips. “I like the taste of you too,” he said with a smile, and then they both resumed the delicious, glorious, heady, direct exchange, kissing and licking and nibbling, just a little, instead of using chocolate as a bridge to each other. 

It wasn’t clear who started the next phase – stumbling across the living room, holding and touching and kissing each other, heading for the sofa. Sherlock was the one who backed into the sofa, though, and wobbled – his knees were none to useful about then anyway. His descent onto the leather was pretty much only controlled by John, who wrapped one arm around Sherlock’s waist, steadied the other on the back of the sofa and guided their fall so that Sherlock was seated and John was straddled across him.

Sherlock made a sound that was very thoroughly approving, and smeared his mouth down John’s throat to kiss and suck against the pulse point. John gasped and his hips involuntarily jerked forward. He somehow pulled and twisted so that he was lying on the sofa now, and Sherlock was sprawled over him, and it was Sherlock then whose hips rolled, pushing his clothed erection hard against John’s.

John, breathing hard, eyes closed, forehead pressed to Sherlock’s cheek, clutched Sherlock’s shoulders and didn’t move.

Sherlock stopped too, and he looked down at John with a furrowed brow.

“You’ve never thought about this beyond the kissing,” Sherlock accused, though he still held John tight.

“Wrong,” said John, sprawled underneath him on the sofa, legs entwined around Sherlock’s, arms across his back. He gave Sherlock a level stare and waited, but Sherlock simply looked puzzled.

“I’ve never thought about you wanting to kiss me too,” said John at last, thinking that he ought more often to remember that Sherlock was a deducer, not a mind-reader, “I’ve hardly thought beyond that fact – that y _ou_ want to. Me thinking about doing more than kissing you… I’ve done that for years. It never occurred to me you’d actually want to. Kiss. Me. Or… more.”

“Well,” said Sherlock, the tension leaving his arms and his voice, nuzzled John’s cheek, “I want more. I want…” He kissed John hungrily, then shifted to bite carefully on his earlobe, then rolled his hips against John’s again, “Everything.”

“Good,” said John, and buried his fingers in Sherlock’s hair to hold him still, to kiss him thoroughly, then tilt Sherlock’s head so John could suckle on his throat.

Sherlock slowly undressed John, undoing each button and kissing and licking the skin revealed. John rucked Sherlock’s shirt up and rubbed his hands across the skin of Sherlock’s back; against his spine and waist and hips. Down below the waistband of Sherlock’s trousers to squeeze his arse.

To finish stripping, they had to get off the sofa, so it took a while for them to build up enough heated motivation to give up their mutual petting and stroking and kissing. Then they kissed and stroked and petted and squeezed their way to Sherlock’s room – later they found that they’d trodden on a couple of the discarded hearts, but at the time they really didn’t register – where they soon made themselves naked.

They licked and sucked and kissed – fingers and nipples and bellies and mouths and throats and thighs – until they were both so thoroughly _tasted_. Then Sherlock rolled onto his back, and John sat with his thighs spread and pressed to Sherlock’s hips, and with rolling thrusts and spit-slicked hands and heated skin and cries and moans, first Sherlock and then John came, painting each other’s skins, crying out each other’s names, then kissing, kissing, kissing deep.

John collapsed onto Sherlock’s chest and breathlessly kissed the skin under his cheek before rolling aside and panting with a happy grin at the ceiling. He turned his head a little to see Sherlock lying beside him, eyes closed, lips parted, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“I take it back. You can have my heart any time,” said John, and Sherlock opened his eyes to give him a soft and slightly startled look. John replayed the sentence, and thought about panicking, but then Sherlock broke into a dazzling smile.

“I clearly should give you one in exchange,” he said, eyes crinkling with happy amusement, “You can even lick it if you want.”

John laughed, that infectious giggle of his, and Sherlock laughed too.

“The whole display with licking the hearts,” Sherlock said, after a few moments of contented silence, “Was to mark prior ownership and stop others stealing what was yours.”

John narrowed his eyes. “Yeeees,” he said slowly, but there was a glimmer of humour in his eyes, as though he suspected what was coming.

“The point, however, is that the prospective thief must see the marking take place.”

John’s eyebrow rose in amused challenge. “That’s the idea.”

“I should take you to Regent’s Park and invite all your ex-girlfriends,” said Sherlock, “And lick you all over. Just to make the message clear.” He turned to look at John, an eyebrow raised.

John was blinking at him, and further down the bed, John’s reaction to this idea was something other than his eyebrow rising. Sherlock looked down John’s body – and his hand followed his eyes, stroking down John’s chest, his stomach, and then to his sudden new erection.

“It’ll have to be a mutual marking exercise,” said John, “I should strip you naked, spread you out on a lion in Trafalgar Square and lick you thoroughly to make sure everyone knows you’re mine.”

A vision which left both of them achingly hard again. They wriggled to wind arms around each other, and to kiss and whisper and frot and moan and come together again.

*

A month later (a month of kissing, of tasting, of moaning and naked licking and so many orgasms) John stepped out of the cab near the latest crime scene. Sherlock was already out and flipping up his collar. He was peering beyond the police tape to a woman by the door, talking to a witness, and frowning in dislike.

John followed his gaze. He'd been on exactly half a date with Constable McKinnon. “Don’t be like that,” said John, “It was never going to work out with her anyway.”

“Why not?” Sherlock cast a look at John that was half curiosity, half huff.

“She’s not you.” And John smiled at Sherlock, with his eyes and the tilt of his chin and his relaxed stance as much as with his mouth.

Sherlock smiled back, mollified, but then he hummed speculatively. After a quick glance around to see that no-one was yet watching, Sherlock leaned over to lick surreptitiously along John’s face, very quickly, across his cheekbone to the corner of his eye.

John just laughed. “Daft bugger.” As Sherlock began to turn, John caught him around the neck with a warm, strong hand, pulled him down and likewise licked Sherlock quickly but a shade more extravagantly from jaw to cheekbone. “Just so you know it goes both ways.”

Sherlock laughed, tugged his Belstaff close and was about to stride towards the police tape, only to find Lestrade standing between them and the crime scene.

Lestrade was shaking his head, exasperation and amusement vying for pole position on his face. “Whatever you two think you’re doing, stop it.”

“We’re staking our claims,” said Sherlock, smugly, hiding his surprise, because he didn’t think anyone had seen. John, more abashed, or he would have been if he wasn’t feeling so damned smug himself, simply shrugged wryly and stuffed his hands into his pockets.

They strode ahead of Lestrade and Sherlock held up the tape for John to duck under.

Behind them, Greg’s face scrunched into a very pleased-for-them grin, while he refused steadfastly to consider what might lead two grown men to lick each other as a declaration of possessiveness, like a pair of nine-year-olds guarding a trove of boiled lollies from marauders.

(And then he absolutely and resolutely made himself not think about John and Sherlock licking each other all over like sweets.)

((And then, after the case was solved, Greg called Mycroft and, without saying where he’d got the idea, proceeded that night to stake his claim, to the satisfaction of all involved.))

 

**Author's Note:**

> Here are the [Godiva chocolate hearts. ](http://www.godivachocolates.co.uk/coeur+selection+chocolates+14+chocolates/72850.html?cgid=C330#cgid=C330&start=10%20)
> 
> And here is some information on [Alien Hand Syndrome](http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/human-brain/alien-hand.htm) which really is a thing.


End file.
